Bryan Fischer
Murder calls for the death penalty - - period
By Bryan Fischer
"You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." ~ from a time-honored civil code from the ancient Middle East
Two cases in the news today call attention to the perennial debate over the death penalty.
In a local case being played out in a federal courtroom in Boise, convicted pedophile Joseph Duncan's trial is in its sentencing phase, with a jury entrusted with the decision whether or not to put him to death for his brutal murder of nine-year-old Dylan Groene, after the boy had been brutally and repeatedly raped.
Testimony given by Dylan's younger sister, Shasta, revealed that Duncan killed the little boy by shooting him in the stomach with a shotgun -which, she said, caused his "guts" to hang out — and then blasting him in the head after deciding the Dylan's life could not be saved. FBI experts testified that the initial gunshot wound could not have been accidental.
A doctor testified that his wounds were similar to common battlefield wounds, and that if the boy had received medical attention within several hours, the injury was "very potentially salvageable."
Duncan, the despicable defendant who is representing himself, actually tried to get the doctor to admit the possibility that the "guts" Shasta had seen spilling out of her brother's body could have been RamDon noodles the boy had eaten earlier.
Since Duncan has already confessed to the murders of Dylan and to the murder of his mother, her fiancé, and Dylan's older brother, it's an absurd miscarriage of justice even to have a penalty trial. It puts this poor little girl through the agony of reliving these excruciating events, after the perpetrator has already acknowledged his guilt. Where is the compassion in that?
And where is the justice in giving a man like this even the opportunity to wriggle out of the death penalty after admitting that he beat Dylan's family to death with a hammer just so he could kidnap these two children in order to sexually abuse them?
Perhaps the Bible has had it right all along. In Genesis 9, God says, "From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."
In another Idaho case, one man may escape the death penalty for a series of ambush murders on grounds that, according to Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail, he is not mentally competent to stand trial.
He told the Idaho Statesman in a jailhouse interview that he was "possessed" at the time. Apparently Judge Bail has now accepted "the devil made me do it" excuse as a legitimate ploy to evade justice. But if elitist judges and journalists sneer at the concept of Satan and demonic possession and laugh at the practice of exorcism, how can they possibly, with a straight face, accept the claim of demonic possession as a legitimate reason to get away with murder?
Yet this man, John Delling, has confessed to shooting and killing two men — including a childhood friend of his — and wounding another. He is clearly mentally competent enough to admit what he did, and to understand that what he did was wrong.
He was mentally competent enough to use the internet to locate two of his targets, plan and execute a 6,500 mile trip, and to commit obviously pre-meditated ambush murders. He is clearly mentally competent enough to be put to death for these senseless murders, and should have been executed for his crimes by now, based simply on his own confession.
These senseless delays — which raise more questions about the sanity of our legal system than the sanity of this admitted murderer — prolong the pain and the agony of the families of the victims who look to that system for justice so that they can achieve some kind of closure. Where is the compassion in that? And where is the compassion for taxpayers, who are forced to pay for this man's attorney, his psychiatric examinations, for his room and board and for the cost of inevitable appeals, all for someone who has admitted to two cold-blooded murders?
Idaho law does not allow a defendant to use insanity as a defense against a murder charge, but if insanity can be used as a legal trick to avoid even going to trial, what's the difference? You can't be found guilty unless you go to trial, and if being declared nuts can keep you from going to court in the first place, it certainly sounds like insanity is a pretty good defense against a murder charge after all, state law or not.
Note: The quote with which I opened this column comes from Numbers 35:34.
© Bryan Fischer
"You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." ~ from a time-honored civil code from the ancient Middle East
Two cases in the news today call attention to the perennial debate over the death penalty.
In a local case being played out in a federal courtroom in Boise, convicted pedophile Joseph Duncan's trial is in its sentencing phase, with a jury entrusted with the decision whether or not to put him to death for his brutal murder of nine-year-old Dylan Groene, after the boy had been brutally and repeatedly raped.
Testimony given by Dylan's younger sister, Shasta, revealed that Duncan killed the little boy by shooting him in the stomach with a shotgun -which, she said, caused his "guts" to hang out — and then blasting him in the head after deciding the Dylan's life could not be saved. FBI experts testified that the initial gunshot wound could not have been accidental.
A doctor testified that his wounds were similar to common battlefield wounds, and that if the boy had received medical attention within several hours, the injury was "very potentially salvageable."
Duncan, the despicable defendant who is representing himself, actually tried to get the doctor to admit the possibility that the "guts" Shasta had seen spilling out of her brother's body could have been RamDon noodles the boy had eaten earlier.
Since Duncan has already confessed to the murders of Dylan and to the murder of his mother, her fiancé, and Dylan's older brother, it's an absurd miscarriage of justice even to have a penalty trial. It puts this poor little girl through the agony of reliving these excruciating events, after the perpetrator has already acknowledged his guilt. Where is the compassion in that?
And where is the justice in giving a man like this even the opportunity to wriggle out of the death penalty after admitting that he beat Dylan's family to death with a hammer just so he could kidnap these two children in order to sexually abuse them?
Perhaps the Bible has had it right all along. In Genesis 9, God says, "From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."
In another Idaho case, one man may escape the death penalty for a series of ambush murders on grounds that, according to Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail, he is not mentally competent to stand trial.
He told the Idaho Statesman in a jailhouse interview that he was "possessed" at the time. Apparently Judge Bail has now accepted "the devil made me do it" excuse as a legitimate ploy to evade justice. But if elitist judges and journalists sneer at the concept of Satan and demonic possession and laugh at the practice of exorcism, how can they possibly, with a straight face, accept the claim of demonic possession as a legitimate reason to get away with murder?
Yet this man, John Delling, has confessed to shooting and killing two men — including a childhood friend of his — and wounding another. He is clearly mentally competent enough to admit what he did, and to understand that what he did was wrong.
He was mentally competent enough to use the internet to locate two of his targets, plan and execute a 6,500 mile trip, and to commit obviously pre-meditated ambush murders. He is clearly mentally competent enough to be put to death for these senseless murders, and should have been executed for his crimes by now, based simply on his own confession.
These senseless delays — which raise more questions about the sanity of our legal system than the sanity of this admitted murderer — prolong the pain and the agony of the families of the victims who look to that system for justice so that they can achieve some kind of closure. Where is the compassion in that? And where is the compassion for taxpayers, who are forced to pay for this man's attorney, his psychiatric examinations, for his room and board and for the cost of inevitable appeals, all for someone who has admitted to two cold-blooded murders?
Idaho law does not allow a defendant to use insanity as a defense against a murder charge, but if insanity can be used as a legal trick to avoid even going to trial, what's the difference? You can't be found guilty unless you go to trial, and if being declared nuts can keep you from going to court in the first place, it certainly sounds like insanity is a pretty good defense against a murder charge after all, state law or not.
Note: The quote with which I opened this column comes from Numbers 35:34.
© Bryan Fischer
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